Recently an acquaintance mocked a choice I made. For a while now, I’ve been using a feature phone instead of a smartphone. Some would call it a “dumbphone,” but I do reject this term for various reasons, although I certainly do use one of the “dumbest” models you can snag while still having a functioning device.

Regardless, what they said was something to the effect of “well, you can brag about doing this all day, sure, but when it’s all said and done in 2025 you still need a smartphone so you’re still using one anyways.” They went on to list a bunch of things you supposedly need a smartphone for these days. Of course, none of what they said was really correct for my specific circumstances. I have no personal need of a smartphone in any major sense. I mean, I haven’t even powered on my old smartphone in a few weeks now.

Despite that, however, I still felt a bit offended at the comment. A feeling arose in me that went a little something along the lines of “how dare they claim I’m being merely performative in my eschewing of smartphones.” Immediately, I wanted to tell them off for this, let them know just how wrong they really are! This is an incredibly irony rich feeling to have, wanting to be seen as more than just performative yet relying on verbal performance to make my point, but it was one I had nonetheless.

I did act on that feeling to a degree, but I was able to restrain it more than not. Of course, I was only able to do this by virtue of having self-awareness in that moment, having become aware of the mental gymnastics I was doing as I was doing them. Dropping the topic promptly led to me ultimately avoiding a large and bothersome argument as that particular acquaintance, a friend of a friend, is an exceedingly litigious character (often in bad faith, unfortunately).

It’s this habit of our minds to want to be perceived in a specific way, identifying with certain things and to have control over others’ views of us and our identities, that can be such an enemy to our own happiness. It’s this craving for happiness as we specifically define it that is itself an enemy to happiness, paradoxically. Of course, this is due in no small part to the fact that our definitions of happiness, or the states that will bring happiness in particular, are incredibly obtuse. They rely on setting everything in some specific way, having it our way, and not readily accepting exceptions here or there.

Naturally, the problem with this is that the world will not just be this way or that way as we want it, no matter how much we want it to be so. We can continue to rail against it blindly, saying “it should be this way,” or even worse forms of this thought such as “it must be this way” or “I can only accept it this way” or “if only it was this way, things would be right.” This, however, only leads to more suffering over and over again, because it’s a feeling that can never be satisfied. Even on the occasion we are able to set a certain thing in our way, we conclude things still unsatisfied with our current state, and our minds begin looking for other things we take issue with, and the cycle continues.

Only in seeing this cycle at this level, seeing its futility, and wanting out can we begin to escape it. The road out from here comes from being aware of our own behaviors, thoughts, and actions as they happen in the present moment, and cutting them off when they are harmful to us and nurturing them well when they are beneficial for us. This is of course all easier said than done, but a great starting point is centering oneself on the present moment by focusing on the breath without attempting to breath manually or force breathing.

Hmm, perhaps I will create an original CSS for this page at some point. Or perhaps not, I really quite like this plain and vaguely pure HTML design personally.